On receipt of the quaestor's report a Council was held to determine the policy of the Empire towards the Visigothic king....

The empire did not feel strong enough to support Auvergne and it was decided to cede the whole territory to Euric, apparently without condition.
The despair of Sidonius knew no bounds and he writes a nobly indignant letter to a bishop who had been concerned in the negotiations: The state of our unhappy region is miserable indeed.

Everyone declares that things were better in wartime than they are now after peace has been concluded.

Our enslavement was made the price of security for a third party; the enslavement, ah--the shame of it!, of those Avernians ...

who in our own time stood forth alone to stay the advance of the common enemy....
These are the men whose common soldiers were as good as captains, but who never reaped the benefit of their victories: that was handed over for your consolation, while all the crushing burden of defeat they had to bear themselves....